Users of partitionable information technology (IT) servers (hereinafter, “partitionable server”) often desire to access the various partitions therein for operational configuration and management. One apparent approach to accessing each and every server partition is to employ multiple sets of physical user interface devices (hereinafter, “physical UI devices”), such as a keyboard, a video monitor, and a mouse, with each set connected to input/output (I/O) interfaces of each available server partition. However, this partition-access approach is costly because it requires the use of multiple sets of physical UI devices and dedicated physical space near the partitionable server for placement of the physical UI devices. For example, when partitionable servers are rack mounted in an IT environment, multiple sets of physical UI devices required for each server would take up dedicate rack space that is typically at a premium. To avoid the aforementioned costly partition-access approach, a user may access each partition in a partitionable server by physically moving a single set of physical UI devices from partition to partition for connection thereto. While this alternate approach reduces the cost of having to employ multiple sets of physical UI devices, it is inconvenient to the user because it requires the user to expend time and energy to connect and disconnect physical UI devices from partition to partition as needed.
A more user friendly partition-access approach involves the installation of a conventional KVM switch (“KVM” stands for keyboard, video, and mouse) that connects to the multiple available partitions in the partitionable server. The user is then able to access each of the available partitions by connecting a single set of physical UI devices to the KVM switch, which provides switching from partition to partition. Thus, the user no longer needs to connect and disconnect the physical UI devices from partition to partition. However, this approach also requires dedicated physical space near the partitionable server for the placement and connection of the KVM switch to the multiple partitions in the partitionable server. To avoid the physical space requirement of the typical hardware KVM switch, widely-available software or virtual KVM switches may be employed to provide users with remote access to server partitions via a data network, such as the Internet or any other local area network (LAN) or wide area network (WAN). However, virtual KVM switches typically do not provide users with local access to the partitionable servers. This is important when, for example, the user desires to be at the physical location of the partitionable server to observe the configuration and management of such a server.